Sort of a distant tangent off my post about Ashton, but I'm growing more and more suspicious of the fandom claim that there's no time for small RP moments in Campaign 3. I do think that it's been challenging to get deeper party bonding or serious conversations that aren't about the big philosophical questions they're facing, since those do take much more time; but then I think about Calamity, or Candela Obscura. I can genuinely give you at least a couple paragraphs about pretty much every relationship in the two Circles, or in the Ring of Brass. I can also point to no shortage of small moments between characters in the Mighty Nein Aeor or Vox Machina Vecna endgame episodes, which were all extremely plot-heavy and fast-paced, and D20 consistently nails character relationships in a fraction of the time.
I think it really does come down to, as Brennan Lee Mulligan always says, the character creation phase. Laying down a solid groundwork in which everyone has a detailed, rich backstory and sense of personality and relationship history (in the case of characters who knew each other prior to the start of the series) is absolutely crucial, and even in the case of characters who don't know each other before going in, a good amount of time spent in character creation ensures that it's easier for them to develop those interpersonal relationships on the fly. I know in actual play there's some degree of finding the character as you play, but there are games for which there is a very short runway, and I don't think it ever hurts to do more extensive character prep than the bare minimum. And if there are gaps, I think it also helps to go back and fill those in mid-way, away from the table - Travis clarifying Chetney's backstory being a great example that allowed the history of Chetney and Deanna to feel realized and full, despite only a few episodes.
I'll also be blunt: most of the time when people complain that there aren't moments because the plot keeps moving...they're mad about shipping. Which has always rung hollow to me. It was a common complaint in C2, that no time was taken for character relationships, despite them taking an entire half of an episode for the Beauyasha date and despite no shortage of moments for all three of the other couples (and plenty of platonic moments between friends). The issue was never a lack of time; it was that the characters they wanted to talk to each other didn't actually have the relationship in canon that the fans had dreamed up, and so, when the chips were down, they went to other people.
It takes two seconds to say something like "I hold their hand", even in the middle of plot-heavy adventuring. If someone doesn't say it, it's rarely the GM rushing them; it's the player either choosing not to do so, or not remembering to do so, and either of those is quite revealing regarding how the player feels about that relationship and where it stands in their priorities.
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side effect of having my hydroxychloroquine work really well is that i'm forgetting what it felt like to be Really Horrifically Sick. both because of the emotional distance and because of my general memory issues. the memory issues are a LOT worse concerning Times When I Was Horrifically Sick.
so i'm actually pretty grateful to my past self for the amount of time i spent oversharing here. if i scroll back like seven months in my autoimmune tag i can find posts of me essentially going "eh, i'm sleeping for 22 hours a day but i don't really care anymore bc i've accepted i'm gonna die" and "life sux. can't breathe or think or feel my chest but that's constant so i don't wanna go to the ER about it AGAIN" and "docs took 14 vials of blood 4 x-rays several lung images several lung tests and an EKG before i even left the hospital today. even tho they havent gotten my test results back yet" and i'm like god Damn.
I REALLY LIVED LIKE THIS????????
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maybe there should be a term that's like a sister term to 'plot armour', called 'plot power'
because how the hell did sylvanas even have the power to take the helm of domination off of bolvars head. 'plot power'. She can't die, and she has to be more powerful than the goddamned Lich King. So she took his helmet and disenchanted it right in front of him. IN FRONT OF US
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